How prepared are you for planning and conducting an effective job search? Successful job seekers must have both good information and well-developed job hunting skills. Three important factors for a successful job search are

1. An awareness of your goals and skills.
2. An understanding of the labor market, and
3. A well planned job search campaign.

Experts recommend that you begin an active job search six to nine months in advance of your target employment date. You can begin the process by visiting the Career Center early (for students, nine months to a year before graduation).

Time Saving Tips to Speed up Your Job Search

1. Be Prepared.

Have a telephone answering machine or voice mail system in place and sign-up for a professional sounding email address. Put your cell phone number on your resume so you can follow up in a timely manner.

2. Be More Than Prepared.

Always have an up-to-date resume ready to send - even if you are not currently looking for work. You never know when an opportunity that is too good to pass up might come along. Have a supply of good quality resume paper, envelopes and stamps on hand.

3. Don't Wait.

If you are laid-off, file for unemployment benefits right away. You may be able to file online or by phone. Waiting could delay your benefits check.

4. Get Help.

Utilize free or inexpensive services that provide career counseling and job search assistance such as college career offices, state Department of Labor offices or your local public library.

5. Create Your Own Templates.

Have email and paper versions of your resume and cover letter ready to edit. That way you can change the content to match the requirements of the job you're applying for, but, the contact information and your opening and closing paragraphs won't need to be changed.

6. Use Job Search Engines.

Search the job search engines. Use the sites that search the major job banks, employer sites and electronic news groups for you.

7. Jobs by Email.

Let the jobs come to you. Use job search agents to sign up and receive job listings by email. All the major job sites have search agents and some web sites specialize in sending announcements.

8. Use Your Network.

Be cognizant of the fact that many, if not most, job openings aren't advertised. Tell everyone you know that you are looking for work. Ask if they can help.

The following list summarizes the most important Boolean rules to get the best results from any specific job database, however, study its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ?s) and use its online tutorial, if one is provided.

Rule #1

The characteristics (i.e., the individual words, terms or phrases) that you use to describe your dream job are called "key words" on the Internet. They are normally entered in all lower case letters because capitalization makes them cases sensitive. In other words, if you capitalize a key word, the computer will identify only those jobs where that word is capitalized. If you use all lower case letters, the computer will identify every job that contains the word, whether it is capitalized or not.

Rule #2

To link two characteristics together, both of which are required in your dream job, use the Boolean operator AND. Boolean operators are normally expressed in all capital letters. In the example above, you might use the following expression to tell the computer what kind of job you want: $50,000 AND hospitality. This expression tells the computer that you want it to identify any job in its database that offers both characteristics. It must pay $50,000, and it must be in the hospitality industry. If either one of those factors is missing, you do not want to see the job.

Rule #3

To tell the computer that the characteristic for which you are looking is a phrase rather than a single word, use quotation marks. For example: "facility manager" AND $50,000 AND hospitality.

Rule #4

To link two characteristics together, either one of which is acceptable in your dream job, use the Boolean operator OR. For example, Milwaukee OR "Green Bay". Note that using capital letters with city or state names is acceptable as they are seldom expressed any other way.

Rule #5

To link two characteristics together when they are part of a longer set of characteristics, use parentheses. For example, "facility manager" AND $50,000 AND hospitality AND (Milwaukee OR "Green Bay").

Rule #6

To account for the fact that different people use different terms to express the same idea, always include any synonyms of your characteristics and, wherever possible, use a Boolean operator called a wildcard.

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